Scar Tissue
by carved in the sand
Summary: It had taken so long to unmake enemies of each other. SasuSaku.


**A/N:** B_ecause eyepatch sasuke could get it any day on any flat surface...and come SasuSaku babies. Come. On. Enjoy the angst. _

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"Are you afraid?" he asked, amidst the chaos.

The machinery around her is a blur, beeping and ticking loudly. The small team of medics rolling her bed down the hallways of the hospital have anxious, scared faces that do not serve to tame the monster clawing fear in her throat, but she smiles for him.

And she knows she will always smile for him.

"Not with you," Sakura whispers.

Sasuke looks her in the eye for a long time.

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Sakura doesn't remember crying more in her life.

"She's so _beautiful_," she murmured, wiping at her face furiously so she could see the little blurb of pale skin and soft pink hair at her scalp. When the tears cleared, she could see the dark eyes with honest warmth glowing in them before they fell into another lapse of sleep. Her eyes were scrunched up, and her body was so small, more delicate than snowflakes in late November, but her presence in Sakura's arms was so potent that she could not help but feel like bursting.

Her body still felt soft and achy, like fresh scar tissue, but she was still painfully happy.

"I know," Sasuke replied. "Try not to get your snot all over her."

"I can't wait to knock you on your ass in a couple of weeks," Sakura snapped through a hiccup, bringing the new born close to her lips to press a kiss to. She went quiet again, her eyes trailing away from her daughter. "Are you sure you don't want to name her after your mother?"

Sasuke sat to the side of her hospital bed, hunched over with elbows connected to his knees and gloveless hands clasped together under his chin as he watched his wife and daughter carefully. He wore his uniform, shirt sleeves rolled up at the elbow, flak jacket was left somewhere at the door's entrance, and forehead protector shoved into his pocket. He looked tired and battle weary in his clean clothes, but there was still an insistence of concentration on his face.

"No," Sasuke said. There was more quiet, more knowing silence that, no, there would not be another Uchiha Mikoto again in this world. Sakura looked up, wiping away the rest of her tears. "I like Masa."

It was still dark outside – medics ran around the hospital to catch all the fallen that had been tossed into the emergency ward unceremoniously. The first attack had been quick and brutal, but now, as the front lines reassembled themselves and the wounded were being taken care of, the preparations gave her a measure of security. The smell of chemicals, fresh paint drying in a new home, wafted to her nose sharply. It was too sharp and too clean and too quiet in their little room. Beyond the door, with a crack of light coming out from under it and the noises of the hospital echoing about, there was only the soft beeping of machines and Sasuke's breathing.

"Uchiha Masa."

"It's a strong name," he murmured.

"She'll need a strong name after what's gonna happen when she wakes up," Sakura replied, sighing. She poked the small child's nose, watching her eyelashes flutter a moment before falling back into sleep. "Hey there, beauty. You hear that? You're gonna have a hell of a day tomorrow."

"Intel says that Naruto will be be back by sunrise with the Suna reinforcements," Sasuke said suddenly, a half-whisper against the quiet. "The second strike is likely to come this time tomorrow. Maybe earlier."

"Then we just have to be ready for them," Sakura murmured. She looked up at Sasuke's singular visible eye, giving him a feral smile. She tapped the violet diamond on her forehead teasingly, sharp nail connecting with the near silent hum of focused chakra. "It's been eight years, you know. I'm a little worried about the two of you. You think you can manage to stay out of my way?"

"You think you can keep up?" Sasuke retorted, cocking his one visible brow at her.

"Who knows? We might be a bit rusty," Sakura murmured. The small new born sneezed, capturing her parents in an instant attention as she looked around in the dark until she met Sakura's gaze. For the second time that night, the sharp intellect in that simple look made her smile. She still doesn't understand how she can fall in love with someone so new and so small a hundred times in just a small look but she does. "I've been out of commission for a while, now."

"We can't afford to be rusty," Sasuke said. She feels the stress in every syllable and _knows_. This is different from every other monster and every other battle – a small bundle of life and warmth cradled in her arms cannot afford her failure, an entire village that cannot afford her failure.

"Yeah. But we'll make it through," she whispered. "I promise."

"Are you afraid?" Sasuke asks.

"Not this time," Sakura answered. She smiled, reached a hand over and pulled up his eye patch to reveal the swirling red Rinnegan of his left eye. Sasuke stared at her owlishly and she winked. "Didn't you notice? We always end up stronger when we're together."

He grins – the expression ripping up her chest with painful affection – and grasps her hand to place a kiss on her knuckles.

"Yeah. We are," he says.

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Twelve years ago, fresh from a war she didn't feel like she'd won, she told him she was afraid of every step he took.

_"I'll be scared until you give me a reason not to be, Sasuke." _

Because she could still hear his chidori singing through the air, ready to run through her flesh. Because she'd seen a glint of unrecognizable madness in his eyes that she could not erase from her memory. Because he fought in a war she didn't think he would even _bother_ with, no explanation, no reasoning, just claims at leading a village he'd been hellbent on destroying. Because he spent years bleeding from every crevice of his heart and he didn't want to tell her about the bloodstains he left everywhere he went. Because he scared her in so many more ways than just how he could destroy a person with just misplaced eye contact.

They'd taken time, years and years, before they'd gotten to the place where they sat in the hospital room with Shizune, wishing their daughter goodbye for the first, and what might have been the last time. It had taken so long to unmake enemies of each other before they could finally stand side by side, facing a new one.

So even when he can taste his death right at his fingertips, he still asks, just to hear her answer again.

"Are you afraid?" Sasuke asks, back pressed against her own. She holds her bloodstained battle axe in one arm, ready to swing and destroy.

"Not...not here. Not with you here," Sakura muttered, diving into the fray once again.

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And he follows, tossing senbon and jutsu and lightning stolen from the sky. He follows. Every time.


End file.
